Like many of the lower priced treadmills on the market, you can find the Weslo Cadence G 5.9 Treadmill available at Amazon. It is currently the biggest seller in the treadmill category with over 3000 reviews at the time of this writing.

It’s currently available for under $300, which is an extremely low price to pay for a treadmill. Let’s take a closer look to see what the treadmill offers.

The Weslo Cadence G 5.9 treadmill is foldable, so you can store it away after your workouts. It comes with two possible incline levels which you’ll need to adjust manually. It has something called Comfort Cell Cushioning which reduces strain on your joints and ankles. It comes with 6 different preset workouts in addition to the manual mode.

Out of the box set up was super simple…if you have a Phillips head screwdriver (who doesn’t?) and about 20 minutes you should be able to handle the installation yourself. If you’re not remotely handy and don’t like following instructions, just call over someone who is.

Once all set up, the Cadence 5.9 doesn’t exactly look like the treadmills we see at the gym. But for under $300, we really didn’t expect too much. I got on and tried out one of the Intensity Training workouts. We ramped up the speed as well to see how the machine felt.

The treadmill was surprisingly quiet, until we got to very high speeds at which point we did feel a little shaking and it did get a bit noisy. But these machines are not really meant for serious runners; rather, they are for casual walkers and joggers, so you can’t expect no noise and no shaking once you crank up the speed and the incline.

We went through all of the different programs, and all of them offered a decent workout for us.

You can monitor your heart rate using the Easy Pulse Heart Rate Monitor on the console (not available on the R 5.2 model). This feature wasn’t too reliable, however, as readings tended to be off a bit. You have an LCD blue-tinted display that cycles through speed, time, distance and calories burned.

You get a 2.25 HP motor, which is not very strong, but again, fine for walking and jogging. The belt is 16″ wide, a bit narrow. A 20″ belt as found on more expensive models is a bit more comfortable to use, but if you are not running it’s not a real issue. The max weight capacity id 275 lbs. Not so bad for a cheap machine.

As expected the warranty on this machines isn’t so good. You get 1 year on the motor and 90 days on the parts. For an extra $60 or so you can get a three year extended warranty, which could be a good option for you. Otherwise you could just spend a few hundred more and get a higher quality machine.